WHO WE ARE

Led by Vaia Tsolas, PhD, an Assistant Clinical Professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a psychoanalyst on faculty at Columbia University, Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, we are staffed by a team of psychologists with decades of experience and educational backgrounds from highly esteemed schools such as Columbia, Harvard, NYU and Fordham. Our staff are steeped in and dedicated to the philosophy of treating each and every client as an individual and to offering nothing short of the highest quality of care and personal concern to everyone who passes through our doors.

ANDJELA SAMARDZIC, M.A.

Psychologist, Psychoanalyst

Andjela Samardzic earned an M.A. in clinical psychology from the University of Zurich and completed her psychoanalytic training at the Psychoanalytic Seminar Zurich (Switzerland). She has worked with adolescents and adults in a wide range of clinical settings including inpatient care (Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich), day clinics and private practice. She has specialized in the fields of trauma, personality and psychosomatic disorders, anxiety and depression, and provides psychotherapy in English, German and Serbian. Inspired by the phrase “the unconscious is structured like a language”, by the renowned French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, Andjela’s focus in treatment is on the particularity of individuals’ use of language so that they may (re-)discover the unconscious meaning of their personal history. Her practice includes understanding the psychodynamics of personal struggles through the exploration of fantasies, associations and dreams whereby personal growth and rediscovery of self may emerge.

Based on her interest in trauma, Andjela also works as a research scholar at New York University in the field of Judaic Studies, focusing on the influence of the Holocaust on the individual survivor narrative.